Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The Hamster Wheel

I am floundering. I have stuff that needs to be done. I know
how to do it. I am more than capable of producing the work I need to produce.
But I can’t seem to get into it no matter how hard I try. I opened this word
document to make something happen. Anything. At least I am writing. Am I burnt out? Depressed?
Decompressed? I haven’t a clue. This entire semester – this one and last…
actually, my entire time at LSU has been a rollercoaster ride. No, it has been
the entire carnival that came with the rollercoaster. And it has absolutely
nothing to do with school. Despite the external bullshit I have had to deal
with - bullshit I voluntarily walked into - I have been able to progress and
succeed. That, in and of itself, is a minor miracle.

I started here a little more than two years ago in a
relationship that turned into a long-distance romance; it became a
long-distance engagement; and, last year, turned into a long distance marriage.
Now it is an almost finished long-distance divorce. The long-distance part was
mitigated as much as possible – more than possible, truth be told – but it
didn’t solve the underlying trust issues. And I should have known, right from
the start. The cheating began almost immediately, the lying, stealing,
gambling, etc. that went with it continued non-stop and no matter what I did or
did not do, it wasn’t enough. It could never have been enough. Now that all
that shit has evaporated, I have slowly rolled to a near standstill. It is
making me question everything. Is this all that is left? Is this all there ever was? What
the fuck am I doing here?

I know the answers. No, no and I am chasing what I once
thought was unattainable. I don’t miss Sacramento as much as I miss the fellowship
of some very close friends I have there. However, I like Baton Rouge and have
some great friends here now, too. I miss my home in Sacramento, but I have an
awesome and equally nice home in Baton Rouge. I am a third-year PhD student and an instructor at a highly regarded R1 university. Everything looks great on paper.
I am out of and past the most toxic, sick relationship I have ever been in. I
am able to look at my own stupidity and own it. I don’t hate myself for entering into what turned out to be a fool’s errand – my heart was in the right place and my
intentions were pure – but all the same I feel like something huge is missing.
And no, it isn’t “her.” Could it be that I had grown so accustomed to the
madness that I miss it? God, I hope not.

I spent a couple of hours earlier doing some editing and
rereading of past posts in my blog. I’ve been meaning to fix some of the
hyperlinks so that they are visible (I changed the background from black to
white a while ago and the yellow hyperlinks were impossible to see). Up until
early 2011, my posts had an underlying energy to them, a contentedness that I
could feel coming from between the
lines. I was happy. I didn’t have nor did I need a “her,” and I certainly was
not seeking what I found. Yet, slowly, the maintenance that relationship
required eventually became all-consuming. But I managed to get through my
schoolwork despite it. Now that energy and mental space has been freed. I knew
I would get here eventually and figured that my productivity would greatly
increase as a result. It seems as though exactly the opposite is happening. I
just don’t get it.